The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-07-25
TALMAGE ON PREACHING
OLD STYLE EXPLOITATION AND
SERMONOLOGY USELESS.
Congregations of the Present Divided

Congregations of the Present Divided
Into Sleepers and Those Wanting to
Go Home by the Old-Time Harangues
"A Living Christ in Contradistinction
to Didactic Technicalities to be q
Feature of Future Religious Dis
course.
THE HAMPToNs, July 24-The RevT de
Witt Talmages subject this morning was:
"Preaching, Teaching and Exhortation, :"
and his text: Romans, xii, rs: "Or minis
try, let us wait on our ministering; or he
that teacheth, on teaching; Or he that ex-
horteth, on exhortation.
Before the world is converted the style of
religious discourse win have to be converted
You might as we'll 20 into the modern Sedan
or Gettysburg with bows and arrows instead
of rifles and bombshells and parks of artill-
cry, as to expect to conquer this world for
God by the old styles of exhortation and
Seimonology Jonathan Edwards preached
the sermons most adapted to the age in
which lie lived, but if those sermons were
preached now they would divide mn audi
ence into two classes, those sound asleep and
those wanting to go home.
Duu JiltIt 10 d ICllSlOuS tloCOutNt VI bnt
future-who will preach it have no idea
in what part of the earth it will be born |
have DO idea in which denominations of
Christians it will be delivered | cannot
guess. That discourse or exholtation may
be born in the country meeting house on the
banks Of the st. Lawrence, or the Oregon,
or the Ohio, Or the Tombigbee, or the Ala
bama. The person who shall deliver it mey
this moment be in cradle under the
-1,n To-, 3 IT. la,
England farm house, or amid the rice-flelds
of Southern savannas. Or this moment
there may be some young man in some of
our theological seminarieS, in the
junior, or middle or senior c,tss,
shaping that weapon of power. Or
there may be coming some now baptism of
Jhe Holy Ghost on the churches, 50 that
some of us who now stand in the watch
towers of Zion, waking TO a realization of
our present inetticiency, may preach it our
eniyeS. That coming discourse may not be
fifty years Off And let rs pray God that its
arrival may be hastened, while | announce
to you what think will be the chief char
acteristics of that discourse or eXhOrtation
when it does arrive, and | want to make the
remarks Of the morning appropriate and
suggestive to all classes of Christian workers.
First OF all | remark, that that future re-
ligious discourse will be full of a living
I IL COllbl W
nicalitieS. A discourse may be full Of
Christ though hardly mentioning His name,
and a sermon may be enlpty of
Christ while every sentence is repetitious of
his titles. The world wants living Christ,
not Christ standing at the head of for
NAL system of theology, but Christ who
means pardon and sympathy, and condo
lence, and brotherhood, and life, and
heaven. A poor mans Christ A rich
% N1a
Christ. An invnlid's Christ. A farmers
Christ. A merchants Christ. An artisans
Christ. An everyman's Christ.
A symmetrical and fineFworded system of
theology is well enough for theological
classes, but it has no more business in pull
pit than have the technical phrases of ain
anatomist or psychologist or a physiciap
in the sick room % q patient. The world
wants help, immediate and worid-uplifting,
and it will come through discourse in
which Christ shall walk right down into
the immortal soul and take everlasting pos
session of it, filing it as full of light as is
this monday armament.
That sermon or eXhortation of the future
will not deal with men in the threadbaye il
lustrations of Jesus Christ. In that Coming
address there will be instances of vicarious
suffering taken right out of every day life,
for there j. not day bplebody is not dying
theritic patient by sacrificing his own life /;
as the ship captain going down with his yes
sci while he is getting his passengers into
the life-bOat; as the fireman consum-
ing in the burning building while he is
taking a child out of a fourth-story window:
as in summer the strong swimmer at East
Hampton, or Long Branch or Cape May, or
Lake George, himself perished trying to res
cue the drowning; as the newspaper boy one
r,r,,rnktinor hi- har foy-
years, his invalid mother, when offered by
a gentleman fifty cents to get some especial
paper, and he got it, and rushed up in his
anxiety TO deliver it, and was crushed under
the wheels of tho train, and lay on the grass
with only strength enough TO say: ooh,
what wll become of my poor sick mother
nowg"
Vicarious suffering. The world is full of
it. An engineer said TO me on locomotive
in Dakota: 1--WE men seem to be coming to
better appreciation than we used to. Did
you see that account the other day of an en-
gineer who, to save his passengers, stuck 10
his place, aud when he was found dead in
the locomotive, which was upside down, he
was found still smiling, his hand on the
air r-brakeF And as the engineer said il 10
me, he put his band on the air-brake to
Illustrate his meaning, and looked at him
and thought: "You would be just as much
of hero in the same crisis"
Oh, in that religious discourse Of the
future there will be living illustrations
taken out from everyday life of vicarious
suffering-illu that will bring 30
mind tho ghastlier sacrifice of Him who, in
the high places Of the field, on the cross
fought our battles. and wept our griefs, and
endured our struggle, and died our death.
A German sculptor made an image Of
Christ, and he asked his little child two
years old who it was, and she said 'That
must be some very great man" The sculp-
tor was displcased with the criticism, so he
got another block of marble, and chiseled
away on il two or three years, and then he
brought in his little child, four or five years
of age, and he said to her: "Who do you
think that isf' She said: THAT must be
the One who took little children i'm His arms
and blessed them. Then the sculptor
was satisfied. Oh, my friends, what the
world wants Is not cold Christ, not mn in
telectuai Christ, not q severely magisterial
Christ, but loving Christ, spreading ont
His arms Of sympathy TO press tho whole
world TO His loving heart.
But, / remark again, that the religious
discourse Of the future will be short. Con
densation is demanded by the ago in which
we live. No more need Of long introduc-
tions and long applications, and 50 many
divisions TO discourse that il may be said
TO be hydra headed. In other days men got
all their information from the pulpit. There
were few books aud there wore no newspq-
pers, and there was little travel from place
TO place, and people would sit and hsten two
and q half hours 10 q religious discourse,
~. Al IL.